SEATTLE, WA – MAY 06: Ryan Doumit #18 of the Minnesota Twins is congratulated by Chris Parmelee #27 after hitting a solo homer in the seventh inning against the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field on May 6, 2012 in Seattle, Washington.Â The Mariners defeated the Twins 5-2. (Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)

SEATTLE – Thirteen games under .500 a week into May is no way to start a baseball season, yet that’s where the Twins find themselves after wrapping up a 1-5 road trip with a 5-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Sunday, May 6, at Safeco Field.

They limp back to the Twin Cities with a 7-20 record that is worse than even the most pessimistic forecasts, but they do so without pointing fingers.

“That’s when things will really go south, if that starts,” catcher Joe Mauer said. “I mean, there’s frustration, don’t get me wrong there. But the worst thing you can do is start pointing fingers and turning on each other. You’ve got to keep battling.

“Guys are playing hard and, we’ve said it before, sometimes too hard. We’re not always letting the game come to us. That’s baseball; we’ve got to figure it out.”

Neither hitting nor pitching, the Twins have lost 11 of their past 13 games and have won one series all season.

“There’s no one in here right now who’s happy, but all we can do is keep playing, go out there and just start winning,” said right-hander Nick Blackburn, Sunday’s losing pitcher after allowing five earned runs on seven hits and three walks in six innings.

“I’m not concerned about the guys in the clubhouse; I don’t think anyone’s just going to lie down,” he added. “Obviously, it doesn’t mean we’re going to turn it around next series, but we’re still going to go out there and try to do what we’ve always done. Hopefully, it turns around for us. It has to, or it’s going to be a real long season.”

In some ways, it already has been.

Less than a quarter of the way through a 162-game schedule, the Twins already have lost a starter to Tommy John surgery (Scott Baker), auditioned two waiver-wire outfielders (Clete Thomas, Erik Komatsu), sent oft-injured first baseman Justin Morneau to the disabled list (actually, it’s official on Monday) and called up their most promising minor league prospect (shortstop Brian Dozier).

These things tend to go with a losing season, though not always in early May. But the Twins never have been this bad this early, and general manager Terry Ryan is trying to tweak a $100 million roster that needs more than a tweak and isn’t all that flexible. Ryan added free agents such as Josh Willingham, Ryan Doumit, Jamey Carroll and Jason Marquis because he believed the Twins weren’t that far from contending.

So far, the record indicates otherwise, though the players in the room dispute that notion.

“This isn’t where we expected to be. We’re a better team than our record indicates,” said Doumit, the lone bright spot Sunday for an offense that averaged 3.6 hits a game on the road trip. “Hopefully, were getting this out of the way early on. I’d rather get them out now than in August. I think we’re going to be just fine. I think this is a very talented team. We’re just going through one of those patches right now.”

Whether a full month qualifies as a patch is debatable. The Twins aren’t ready to toss a season with 135 games left, but they have a lot to overcome. The starting pitching has been the worst in baseball with a combined 4-16 record and 6.73 earned-run average, and they’re hitting .239 as a team with 213 total hits, which ranks 26th among 30 major league teams.

“Everyone here knows we’re capable of winning,” said Blackburn, who has thrown six innings in each of his past two starts but fell to 0-4 with a 6.84 ERA after Sunday’s loss. He hasn’t won a game since July 8, 2011 and is 0-8 with a 5.87 ERA in his past 13 starts. Still, like many of his teammates, he was part of Central Division title-winning teams in 2009 and 2010.

“We’ve got guys in here who have been on a lot of winning teams, and it’s just a matter of going out and doing it,” he said. “We’re just not handling it right now, and I’m one of the big parts of it. I’m going to keep working. I’m not going to lie down and just take it. I’m assuming that’s the attitude in the whole clubhouse, that we’re all ready for a chance, and it has to be us that makes it.”

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